As part of its pledge to the White House on Thursday to hire an additional 10,000 veterans by 2020, AT&T said it wants to make sure its Colorado operations are on the minds of veterans looking for a new job.

In Colorado, the company employs 4,000 people, with 80 employees self-identifying as a veteran. The company doubled its staff here after acquiring DirecTV.

AT&T currently has at least 120 openings in the state, with many for sales at its stores. But there’s also a chunk of technicians needed to be satellite installers, database engineers and system engineers.

The announcement was part of a national proclamation by 50 companies to hire 100,000 veterans over the next five years. Three years ago, AT&T had pledged to hire 10,000 veterans. The company said it met that goal at the end of last year.

Know a veteran who needs an all-expenses paid trip? Nominations are being accepted right now for a contest sponsored by Rise Broadband, the fixed-wireless Internet company in Douglas County.

But don’t expect warm hotel rooms with pillow top mattresses — or even toilets. This is a No Barriers Warriors trip, which will send 12 veterans on an eight-day, 20-mile trek through Colorado mountains.

Rise is kicking in funds to pay for airline transportation, meals and camping gear.

It’s the second year Rise has sponsored the event, which the company says it does to stay engaged with its customers. No Barriers USA is based in Fort Collins.

The Fort Collins resident became the latest illustrated face on the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office’s kid-friendly and limited-edition line of inventor trading cards. Grandin, who teaches at Colorado State University, is touted as the first Colorado inventor on a card though one other inventor, Nikola Tesla, did spend a year in Colorado Springs working on his electricity experiments.

“I just can’t believe the good company I have with Thomas Edison and Tesla. He was probably autistic. He invented the power plant,” Grandin said to a crowd that showed up Sunday at the Patent Office’s Rocky Mountain Regional Office in Denver.

Grandin has one official U.S. patent for a system that helps calm animals as they are led to slaughter. But she said there are several ideas that she helped bring to life. And while they are not official patents, they did make it into the HBO movie about her life that starred actress Claire Danes. Read more…

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“Everything isn’t different,” Green said in a recent interview. “We still have a startup, entrepreunerial environment around here. We still have a lot of employee-driven community outreach and we still have a lot of focus on our products. What’s different is the scale is larger.” Read more…

Loveland’s LulzBot 3-D printers invites the public to see how its 3-D printers print more printers.

If you’ve only heard about a factory in Loveland where 3-D printers print more 3-D printer parts OR just watched a video of it, Aleph Objects is opening its headquarters for anyone to see the spectacle live in person this Friday, February 19, 2016.

Aleph and its LulzBot printers are known throughout the 3-D industry for being a thoroughly open-source company. The software is available for anyone to see and tweak.

The hope is that a thoughtful community will help build a better printer. “We believe you should be free to use, learn from, and improve the hardware and software you use,” Aleph says right on its site.

Subscriptions to its suite of identity software products helped boost revenues 40 percent in 2015 from the prior year. The company also mentions it is on track to hit $100 million in annual recurring revenues this year.

That translates to at least $8.3 million in monthly subscription fees.

Ping is private and not required to report actual income or revenues. But it shared some growth numbers from last year, including that 20 percent of its bookings came from international customers and it added 135 employees. More details are available in Ping’s earnings release.

Growth came especially from multi-factor authentication products, which require more than just a password for people to access accounts and files. Such products could require a fingerprint scan, an approved smartphone or a one-time code.

“This will be our 5th Year – so look for some new surprises,” e-mailed organizer Erik Mitisek, who is also CEO of the Colorado Technology Association. “We will focus to expand our effort for diversity and engagement across all industries.”

The community-driven event plans to again reach out to locals to submit workshop ideas and speakers. Ultimately, there will be a vote. As speakers, workshops are confirmed, details will be posted at DenverStartupWeek.org.

A better way to play with technology toys grabbed judges’ attention on Friday as the Extreme Tech Challenge contest named Boulder’s Sphero one of three finalists that now get to travel to a private island to pitch Sir Richard Branson.

The second annual event, held at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, also named Bloom Technologies, a San Francisco company with technology to help expectant mothers, and Giroptic, a French 3-D camera firm, as finalists in the year-long competition.

Sphero’s Star Wars’ BB-8 robot droid.

Organizers said about 1,000 companies vied for a spot in the show. Judges during the year narrowed down the batch to 25 last fall. In December, that group was whittled down to 10. Two other local companies also presented on Friday.

Kickfurther, based in Boulder, built a crowdfunding site to “connect brands with fans,” said co-founder Sean De Clercq. Startups that need funding sell their inventory to investors, and once the inventory is actually sold, those investors make a little profit — without ever touching the inventory. De Clercq likened the concept to Uber for finance. Read more…

Tamara Chuang covers personal technology and local tech news for The Denver Post. She previously spent 10 years doing the same thing for The Orange County Register before taking a hiatus to move here and become a SAHM to a precocious toddler.